Trying to understand the complaints about DRK

[Zeyd]

Personally, I'm not asking for the old system back. Asking for the same substance the old system had. That when you pair up DA with x skill, the result is satisfactory and not just a direct potency buff. That DA and Darkside is more substantial than pressing it every 2 out of 3 actions or a set it and forget it skill trait.

Fair enough, but this is where the confusion starts setting in, and where I start to wonder my what is expected.

To be continued

[Zeyd]

Let’s use some logic:
DA is currently where a good portion of damage comes in, damage that is balanced quite well with the other tanks. So regardless of what effects happen, it will still need to retain its potency, or that potency would have to be relocated somewhere in order to maintain the balance.

Now, unless NO DA skill effects provide potency (which is a totally diff beast altogether), any added effects: dots, aggro, healing, will still have an “optimal” usage. Players will still want to DA the “optimal” skills and so you wind up taking away even more choice than we currently have, which believe it or not, does exist.

[Zeyd]

At the same time, if these extra effects were in place, especially things like healing, once again we go back to balance. We would have to lose something elsewhere to compensate elsewhere. Also, in case we forgot, Dark Mind was just changed for the very reason I’m outlining here. No one liked wasting DA on anything that wasn’t damage.
Add as many effects as you want, that will always be the case.

Ps: sorry, having trouble editing on mobile

[whiskeybravo]

DA is currently where a good portion of damage comes in, damage that is balanced quite well with the other tanks. So regardless of what effects happen, it will still need to retain its potency, or that potency would have to be relocated somewhere in order to maintain the balance.

I don't think anyone was arguing that DA needed to be removed entirely, just reworked so it's not such a spammy button. Obviously you have to retain or shift the potencies around to keep it from being a "nerf". For example, one of the suggestions was to bake MP cost into Carve & Spit for the +140 pot, this is dps neutral and eliminates the need to double weave DA+C&S, since it's not optimal to ever use C&S without DA (outside of dungeons where you might need extra MP on big pulls).

Also, in case we forgot, Dark Mind was just changed for the very reason I’m outlining here. No one liked wasting DA on anything that wasn’t damage.

It's more fundamental than wasting a DA on something other than damage. The change was needed for consistency, now DA adds +140 potency to everything instead of just some things.

[Zeyd]

It's more fundamental than wasting a DA on something other than damage. The change was needed for consistency, now DA adds +140 potency to everything instead of just some things.

It’s not. Just like we don’t use tank stances outside of the initial pull, it is difficult to justify wasting damage on mitigation than can come from elsewhere. You don’t see warriors using inner beast over Fell cleaves.

For any additional effect to make sense, the potencies have to stay. Otherwise those effects will likely not use, as we play in a dmg>all meta.

I do agree about c&s tho, the mana could/should be baked in.

[whiskeybravo]

Well, we are talking semantics more or less. You can say it was changed because people didn't like wasting DA on non-damage abilities - and that's not wrong... But, it's more logical to say it was a change for consistencies sake. It wasn't really a good design choice to have DA add potency on some abilities but not on others, SE realized that and fixed it.

And besides that, Dark Mind buff was a way to increase DRKs overall defensive kit - as most of the community had been requesting. If they decided to change their philosophy to "Dark Arts should always include a damage buff" then it doesn't make sense for DM to have a DA effect on it at all since it's not a damage ability.

Again, we are just looking at it from 2 different perspectives. The player base certainly seems to think DPS>all, but that doesn't mean it's a real consideration for the devs. (IE, they probably aren't concerned about our damage so much as making sure the tanks are competitive with one another overall)

[Mahrze]

Fair enough, but this is where the confusion starts setting in, and where I start to wonder my what is expected.

The expectation is to have a robust tool-kit that doesn't require a crutch for every action. If we're using logic, you're reading things too literal to realize that by exposing the DRK issue as lack of substance, we're talking about not just potencies. But if we're gonna tag every ability with DA, it should have a noticeable impact rather than putting potencies behind a gate. You've already conceded the C&S and how Dark mind is a step forward, and there are still plenty of steps forward that don't involve "buff the skill to its DA equivalent and remove DA", because if you're still arguing this is our perspective, you need to add some logic to view the discussion as more than unidimensional.

[Zeyd]

The expectation is to have a robust tool-kit that doesn't require a crutch for every action. If we're using logic, you're reading things too literal to realize that by exposing the DRK issue as lack of substance, we're talking about not just potencies. But if we're gonna tag every ability with DA, it should have a noticeable impact rather than putting potencies behind a gate. You've already conceded the C&S and how Dark mind is a step forward, and there are still plenty of steps forward that don't involve "buff the skill to its DA equivalent and remove DA", because if you're still arguing this is our perspective, you need to add some logic to view the discussion as more than unidimensional.

Please provide some examples of what you would consider a good change for DA

[Zeyd]

It wasn't really a good design choice to have DA add potency on some abilities but not on others, SE realized that and fixed it.

I agree. And why would it be a poor design choice? Because naturally, our player base will shy away from potency losses. Add as many new effects as you want, but in order to keep the DA options competitive, the 140 will have to stay consistent, and at that point we are talking about flat buffing skills. After the 4.3 changes, all the tanks have a very close balance, and any further buffs could easily break that.

[whiskeybravo]

Not my ideas, but:

DA affect GCDs only. This would help reduce double-weaving of oGCDs which some people have problems with depending on latency, and is a somewhat contradictory design considering the main effect of Blood Weapon. (oh you like double weave? How about double weave with HASTE lol)

Related - add another GCD or 2 that you can "hold" DA on (the old Delerium combo achieved this I believe). Hard Slash is basically the only GCD where you can hold a DA, since you ideally wouldn't be doing a lot of aggro combos. Adding another GCD with no DA effect reduces the need to double weave abilities with DA because you can pop it in advance instead of having to squeeze it in on a double weave.

After the 4.3 changes, all the tanks have a very close balance, and any further buffs could easily break that.

Now this is confusing. Most of the complaints about DRK were before 4.3 changes. If you've been talking about people complaining since 4.3, and wondering why, well.. Then none of what I said is really valid. Everything I've been discussing is the last 11 months of complaints/feedback that brought about the 4.3 changes we have today.. DRK still needs some improvements but it's in the best spot it has been since SB launch. One step at a time.